


this is the last time (i'm asking you this)

by Cinnamonbookworm



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Season/Series 4 Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4636656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that he's put the hood on again, the "I can't be with you and be the Arrow" speech is coming. Felicity acts accordingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the last time (i'm asking you this)

**Author's Note:**

> this is what happens when i don't write for weeks and am a slut for angst. for bonus tears listen to the last time by taylor swift (where the title came from)

She’d known this was coming ever since they’d gotten the call to come home.

Before then, really. There’s always been a lingering thought in the back of her mind that this is just the calm before the storm. That this was just a happy dream and one day something was going to come and wake her up.

And, apparently that day is today.

Felicity’s trying not to be bitter, she really is. There were conditions to this, and she’d signed the contract without even thinking of the consequences. Like the damn Little Mermaid - the original one, not the Disney-fied version. Willing to give up an essential part of herself for a short time with him. Hoping that in the few ticks of a clock that she’d gotten she would be able to convince him to change the terms and conditions.

And he loves her, she knows that. And she loves him. But there are rules they’d made when they’d started this out, and she doesn’t think love is enough to break them.

The car ride back to Starling - or Star City, as it’s been rebranded - is too quiet, and Felicity knows that, especially compared to what she is now thinking of as pre-phone-call time, when they were laughing and joking and the space around them was filled with nothing but the carefully cultivated bliss they’d been building up for the past five months.

_I told you that I couldn’t be the Arrow and be with you. I want to be with you._

It was a careful choice. An either or. And she’s been living with that. Shoving all the Sara-era fantasies of them working together in the lair and wanting to kiss him every time he returns home safe and of just being able to know that this is real.

Because she wasn’t lying in Nanda Parbat, he _has_ changed her life, and not just by opening up her heart. She knows she is filled with this desire to help, and to protect, and that’s kind of hard when you’re bopping from place to place around the coast of California and on, barely able to get a wifi signal much less hack into a federal database.

But she’s been forgiving it, because he’s happy, and she’s happy and everything is exactly as perfect as she’d thought it would be. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to forgive herself for this, though.

Because this is the point in time when she should say something. Get a compromise. Get any result other than the one they’re about to get. Surely these past few months counts for something. Surely her opinion counts for something. If she could only get the words to come out.

She doesn’t even know what she’d say.

Felicity’s been staring out the window of the Porsche, looking away from him, and she knows he’s noticed because he keeps sparing glances at her instead of the road, and they’re burning his name onto her heart. She wishes he would stop. They’re going to crash the car.

He asks if she’s okay.

“I’m just worried about Thea.”

And she is, but Thea’s not the reason she’s digging her nails into her arm to remind herself that these last few quiet moments in the car are real. Thea’s not the reason her head hurts just behind her eyes, in that hollowness that comes when you don’t have any tears to cry.

“Hey,” Oliver reaches his hand over to touch her arm. “She’s going to be okay.”

She never thought the day would come when she would envy Oliver Queen for his optimism.

…

For a few hours there, it really seems like this is just another stop on their road trip. Like they’ll just stay there for a week or two and then climb back into the porsche and go away together again. Not that that’s a practical way to live at all, but it’s the only way she can currently think about living without the throbbing behind her eyes getting worse.

It’s clear the team has adapted without them. And really, Dig’s way more of a natural leader than Oliver was anyways, and Laurel’s training with Nyssa has really payed off.

And Thea… Thea is a wicked tornado of swirling red, with a rebellious streak that never really went away. She’s truly Star City’s favorite with the Arrow gone.

Except there are moments when Thea herself disappears, and there’s someone else left, and that is why they were called back. When Oliver’s there she’s better. Felicity thinks maybe it wasn’t the Lazarus Pit that broke Thea, but Oliver’s five years away, because the relief that lights up Thea’s face every time she has an episode -and they reveal to her that Oliver’s still alive- could light all the lights in the city.

Felicity can’t take her brother away from her again.

It’s around that time that she starts accepting the inevitable. But it’s not when full acceptance comes along and hits her in the face like the true last stage of grief. That comes later. Later when the team is out in the field and Oliver and Felicity are sitting in their makeshift base watching on the screens and listening on the comms, but mostly just eating Chinese food and floating in the bubble of contentness they’ve learned how to cultivate in each other’s company.

It’s later when her head is on his chest and they’re just sitting together that they hear Laurel’s voice over the comms, shouting.

She’s screaming Thea’s name in full desperation, her voice growing hoarse, and that’s around the time it hits Felicity. Because there’s only one solution to this at the moment, and it’s the solution she can barely think about.

There’s a few moments where they just look at each other, as the sound of Laurel struggling to get Thea’s attention keeps coming through the comms. He doesn’t need to say anything; she already knows what the solution he’s thinking of is.

“Felicity… I have to.”

And she understands, she really does, but understanding does not stop the way her nails begin to dig into the palms of her hands at the thought of what this means for them. Understanding doesn’t mean she’s at all okay with it. It doesn’t mean that she’ll even be okay afterwards.

“Fine,” she sighs,  “go put on the hood again. But if you think I’m letting you go out there alone, you’re crazy.” And she steps away from him, walking over to the computers set up at their temporary base. Because this, she can do this. She can lose herself in the code and the lights and the rush of static in her ear. She’s been drowning her emotions in this for years now. One more time won’t hurt.

What comes after it, though, might.

He’s looking at her in the way he did after the first fight they’d ever had. Like he’s touched her too roughly and she’s about to shatter. But over time they’d gotten past that. She’d thought they’d gotten past that.

This time, however, maybe he’s right. Because the fragile foundation they’d built up is about to be shattered with an emerald arrow, and she’s not going to be wrecked by this alone if she can help it. And it’s selfish, but maybe she wants the loss to come from both parties this time.

He’d confided to her once, in a dingy hotel room in the deserts of New Mexico, how she wasn’t the only one hurting during the past year. And when she’d started crying, he’d kissed her tears away and it had all felt so surreal.

This, however, does not. This feels more real than anything else she’s experienced in the past five months. This push and pull, the start and stop. She can deal with that. She did it for a year, and it shouldn’t be that hard to transition back to it.

So she lets him walk away, doesn’t look back as he finds the suit she’d talked about with Cisco back when it didn’t seem like such a crazy idea that he could be with her and be the Arrow. Tries not to see the reflection in her monitor of his face as he delicately strokes the arm bands. Tries to convince herself she’s not falling in love with him again.

The reminder that she’s just IT - not there to fall in love with him, and _definitely_ not there for him to fall in love with her - the mantra that kept her feet on the ground for years, isn’t hard to adapt again. The reminder that she can look but can’t touch is almost excruciatingly painful, but it’s necessary. It’s necessary to brace herself for the speech that’s about to come, the one she’s heard two times now.

But she doesn’t need to hear it, not now. She doesn’t need the speech to practice what comes after. She doesn’t need the speech to practice the tears and the pint of mint chip and the wall of steel she attempts to build into her heart again.

She doesn’t need to hear it now because all she’s going to think about is the restaurant in Nevada when he told her the first time he realized he was in love with her. She doesn’t need to be reminded that the first time she’d ever heard that speech came when he already knew. She doesn’t need to be reminded that love isn’t a powerful enough force to stop fate.

And fate has decreed that this love is not to be.

He comes up behind her, in the new suit, and puts his hand on her shoulder.

The touch makes her wince. Not physically, but emotionally, and she knows that somehow he’s realized something’s wrong.

Maybe he hasn’t realized that the terms and conditions have dictated that their contract is about to expire. Maybe she’s a fool for distancing herself from him.

But she’s thought that before and look where it’s gotten her.

She looks up at Oliver and tries not to see her broken self in his eyes. “Go,” she tells him, “Thea needs you.”

I need you. She thinks, but doesn’t say, because, contrary to popular belief, she does have a filter, and she knows it’s selfish to ask him to stay. Because he would, if she asked, and they can’t have that.

Something’s always going to have to come first. Because her life is screwed up like that.

...

It’s a simple mission, really.

Oliver stops Thea from killing someone who doesn’t deserve to die, and when she regains her senses she crawls up into a ball in the makeshift HQ and doesn’t let anyone touch her. Oliver stays behind to look after his sister, and Felicity begins to make her way back to the apartment she hasn’t touched in months.

The apartment that just a few days ago she had been considering terminating the lease on because the idea that she would ever be back there seemed so unrealistic and now… well now she’s barely even willing to enter the building, just standing outside staring up at the place that had been her home for so long but after all this time doesn’t really feel like it.

Home now is white sheets and leather seats and waking up with him beside her. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to go back.

She doesn’t even hear him come up behind her.

Somewhere along the line she’d learned how to tell when he was sneaking up on her. The realization that she didn’t notice this time is a pit in her stomach, even as he steps around her so that he’s facing her.

Felicity starts with something easy, something she can deal with right now, because she’s not sure if she’ll be able to deal with the upcoming storm.

“So you like the suit?”

It’s a half-hearted attempt at keeping the conversation away from where they both know it’s going, but he can’t possibly blame her for trying.

“That was you?” He asks, with a slightly teasing and flirty manner and she wishes they could just stay like this.

She wants to tell him all about it, but that would indicate her wishes that they could just be together and save this city, and she knows that’s not going to happen, so instead she goes with the response that’s slightly more revealing to her current thoughts.

“Well, I figured we’d end up here eventually.”

His face falls, and she hates that she’s the cause of it, but this is a conversation that needs to happen, as much as she wishes it didn’t. Maybe her tone is a little too resentful. Maybe he’s catching onto that. And the resent isn’t directed at him, not really, but more at herself for accepting the terms and conditions of something before she’d realized she couldn’t live without it.

He takes a deep breath. “I know this wasn’t really what either of us were hoping for, but… it’s _Thea_ and I...:”

“No, I get it.”

“Felicity…”

“Go ahead.” She blinks back tears and tries to look up at the sky but finds herself just looking into his eyes again. A smile somehow finds itself across her face, but it tastes bitter, and her words are reminiscent of that flavor as well. “Lay it on me.”

Oliver clearly doesn’t know what she’s referring to, judging by the way his face contorts into that frown she wishes she wasn’t so familiar with. “ _Felicity_ ,” he starts, in that stupid way he always does, the way that, even now, tugs on something inside of her that she wishes it didn’t, “What are you saying?”

She wants to ignore all of it. Wants to tell him it’s fine and that she doesn’t know what she’s been thinking, but this conversation is going to happen eventually, and she doesn’t want to be blindsided by it.

Felicity takes a deep breath, hoping it will stop her hands from trembling. This is hurting more than she’d like it to. “You know,” she waves her hand in a failing attempt at playfulness, “the whole _I can’t be the Arrow and be with you_ thing. Just rip it off. Like a bandaid. It’ll hurt less that way.”

She watches as he stands, mouth slightly parted in protest, but not able to say anything. Oliver’s fists are clenched and his eyes… well she’s not going there.

“It’s okay, Oliver, I promise.” She tells him, even though the tears beginning to run down her cheeks indicate that it’s obviously not okay. “Just promise me this’ll be the last time. Because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep convincing myself that things are going to change because here we are again and I know this is ruining you just as much as it’s ruining me so…”

This time, they’re not in a hospital, or the alley of Verdant, or even the offices in Queen Consolidated. This time, they’re standing in front of her apartment building, and this time she doesn’t protest when he steps closer, because it might hurt less if he’s touching her, in some horribly ironic sense. This time, she won’t look up at him, because she’s scared to see the look he always gives her when he gives this speech. This time, when he tucks his hand under her chin and gently tilts her head up so she has to meet his eyes, she realizes he’s much closer to her than she’d anticipated he’d be. This time, it’s not the kiss that cuts off her words, but rather the way he’s looking at her. The same way he’d looked at her that night in San Diego when she’d told him the real story of how her dad left them. Like instead of her being something fragile that he’s afraid of breaking, she’s his sun.

So he kisses her again, so reminiscent of the last time they did this. But somehow this feels different, despite her desperately trying to convince herself - for her own sanity - that it is not. Because he’s about to tell her what they both already know. He’s about to tell her the words she’s been dreading ever since she got in that Porsche for the last time.

Right now, though, he’s not saying them. Instead, he’s just kissing her.

And they’re pouring every emotion they know how to feel into this kiss, like they’ve done a thousand times before. She’s kissing him back, eagerly, desperately, because it’s the last time and after the night they’ve had she just needs some sort of proof that this is was - that they were - real.

Felicity grasps at his hair. It’s grown longer since the beginning of their roadtrip. One time it’d gotten so long that she had teased him about it until he’d cut it. She’d cut hers too that day, to her shoulders, and he’d spent a blissful eternity with her shoulders afterwards.

His hands are on them now, thumbs resting gently on her collarbone, rubbing small circles, like some last attempt to etch his fingerprints onto her soul.

And, even when they break away, only for air, because neither seem to want to be the one to pull away first, their bodies remain closely pressed together, needing to be one before they can split off into two again.

She shudders into him, refusing to let her hands leave the space they’ve found at the nape of his neck. Felicity feels thoroughly broken, and he hasn’t even said the words yet.

And then she lets go. Begins to walk away because if he’s not going to end this here and now she will. He doesn’t have to say anything. She already has the speech memorized. She can just fill in the blanks.

But then he does

“I’m sorry.” Her back is to him, arms crossed in a readily diminishing attempt to keep the pain she’s feeling from him, but she can still hear the anguish in his voice.

It’s the feeling of his hand on her elbow that changes all that, as he turns her around to face him. Once again, she refuses to look him in the eyes, scared to see the words she’s dreading hearing reflected in them. Knowing if she looks she’s just going to break down again.

“Felicity, look at me, please.” His voice is so sincere and so so shaky that Felicity can’t help herself. She tilts her head up and instead of a collage of things she doesn’t want to hear, finds a galaxy of promises she’d thought he wasn’t going to be able to keep. And then he speaks again and the world seems to hold his breath.“I’m sorry that I made you think that I couldn’t be the Arrow and be with you. I’m sorry that I’m making you feel all of those insecurities we talked about. I’m sorry that I never wanted to learn to fight harder to live than when I just wanted to survive. I’m sorry that being back in this city, back in this place, is making you doubt our relationship. And I’m sorry that I never apologized to you sooner.” She listens as he talks, but keeps her arms crossed. Because he hasn’t really said anything, not really. He’s just walking a line of maybes, and she’s pretty sure she told him last time they did this: _she’s not okay with maybes._

“But there is one thing I will never tell you I’m sorry for.”

“What?” She croaks, and it comes out more hostile than she’d intended, but she’s angry, god, she’s angry. She’s angry they never got the ending they deserved, angry that it’s come to this. She’s so so angry that their last kiss will be forever tainted by her knowing that it was their last. And, most importantly, she’s angry at herself for wishing Oliver would ever be selfish enough to put their relationship above protecting the city.

“I will never tell you that I’m sorry I fell in love with you.”

The bitter smile is easy to conjure, with his words so reminiscent of those in the hospital, but she can’t let him treat this like the hospital. “ _I know that,_ Oliver. But you being in love with me and me being in love with you doesn’t change anything; you still put that damn hood on and you leave me alone. I can’t go through this again, not like that. I get the whole _terms and conditions_ thing, but you could at least _try_ to make this hurt less. You’re not the only one who breaks when this happens.” She’s exasperated and tired and just so upset, especially because he can’t just go and break her heart like a normal person, no, he just _has_ to remind her that he loves her, he just has to remind her of all the reasons this is going to destroy her.

“And you won’t. Not again, not ever.” Oliver vows, pulling her hands to his and interlocking their fingers, as if that will make this easier. As if anything he says can possibly make this easier. Just because he’s promising he won’t break her again after this, doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. “I can’t promise that I won’t try to push you away. And I can’t promise that I won’t flip out if you get hurt. But I can promise that I will never truly walk away from you, unless you ask. But even then, I am going to put up one hell of a fight. You fought for me for so long, now it’s my turn.”

The _I love you_ is a sound she’s never gotten tired of hearing. He’s worn it out almost as much as her name by this time, but it’s worn out like a favorite pair of socks, or the MIT sweatshirt she’s had for ages. It’s a comfort that she needs in order to believe him.

And she does.

She’s not usually the one to return the phrase, since he says it in every empty space there is, but this time, this time it’s another necessity. It’s a necessity for her to trust that what he’s said is the truth, and that she believes it. She needs to hear herself say it.

_“I love you.”_

It leaves her mouth covered in the sticky fog of fear that had accumulated over the past twenty-four hours, a fog that she quickly dampens by drawing him close to her again, and this time the kiss is sweeter. This time it doesn’t feel like a beginning or an ending, because it isn’t, but it’s the first one to truly feel like a promise.

And a promise that neither of them intends to break.

It’s a promise he presses into her skin and she whispers in his ear as morning breaks and the headline of the reemergence of the Green Arrow hits the press. And maybe, just maybe they can make it through the rest of whatever this is together.

 

 


End file.
